The 3Gs – Germination Growth Greatness
by Fatima Masood
Germination
‘I Know Who You Are!’ originated in January 2007 when both of us were enjoying every bit of our routine. We were in our second year of teaching at Pristine Private, Mariam had stepped into coordinatorship and I was enjoying my new designation of a Reading Teacher. Our professional life was going on strong and we did not have to bring work home which gave us a good chunk of time to make use of.
Way back in 2004 we had started writing our philosophy of life and intended to get it published as a book. All the while, our first writings were reckoning us and pleading for attention. Whenever both of us would talk about taking on something interesting to do, working at the book would be on the list, unsaid. We had realised that writing brought a pleasing harmony within ourselves and generated a great feeling of content.
So, both of us, while ironing clothes, washing dishes, taking a shower, watching television, playing video games, listening to the radio and so on, were thinking of writing but what actually we should start with, was the question.
Then, all of a sudden, we started talking about how people have difficulty in understanding each other and having a workable relationship. Although the challenge was of high complexity it required a simple solution.
Thinking about the diversity of people that exist and their unique personalities, I thought it was important to, first of all, visually make the difference appear. Just because humans physically look similar they expect each other to have a similar set of thoughts, opinions, and believe that everyone has identical priorities. The idea of making characters that would have distinct physical features germinated, which looked fresh and interesting.
The first character that came to my mind was of a person with long fingernails who would go around creating trouble, Scuff as we know him now. Another character that appeared clearly in my imagination was of Headspin, ever-ready human talking machine.
It was only when these two characters were clear in my mind, to support the concept of making the task of ‘understanding people’ easy for people in general, I spoke to Mariam about it. We were in our car, parked in a parking lot near our apartment building. We were waiting for our sister, Faryal to join us after she was done with her work in a nearby shop. Since we had been recently thinking hard of a project to take off, it wasn’t a bad time and place to start off the discussion. Although I was not very sure if Mariam would accept the concept and moreover, prioritise it over our other projects, she did surprise me with her reaction.
Our very first discussion was very successful. We talked about how we would show the co-existence of all these characters and transcript the real-life challenges people face with each other in day-to-day life. Mariam came up with the idea of Flipside, a person who looks at the incidents in the past as a guide to the future. The discussion was let loose on the note that we would both think in isolation and hopefully come up with similar ideas to talk about.
A month later, from January 2007, another character came into shape. Sticklip was finalised to join the trio of Headspin, Scuff and Flipside. He was a result of in-depth dialogue that involved discussing the relevance of Sticklips in the society and the numbers he might be found in.
The team of five was completed when the character of a corrector came into being, Hammerhead. From the time we had approved of the concept of the book, we were looking for a strong character that would be influential and ingenious when it comes to helping people resolve their problems. The only challenge was to associate the right kind of physical feature to the character. Finally, Allah helped us in guiding our thinking and we came up with the concept of Hammerhead.
That was it! The awesome fivesome were born and we, as authors, were ready to associate attributes, behaviour, thought and insight to them.
Still, there were many questions circling our minds;
Would we find enough ideas to develop these characters equally strongly?
Would these characters come out to be as distinct as they are made to appear?
How would we present the concept of our distinct characters to the readers?
How would the physical features of these characters be associated to the common people found in the society?
Growth
Once a new destination has been decided and the map is in the hand, travelling becomes a courageous task. The fear of the unknown and uncertainty take turns in making a person think twice about his decision. Something similar is what both of us, Mariam and Fatima, went through after all the Character Skins had been born.
Pushing all the hurdles – thoughts, doubts and uncertainties off the path, we worked our energies to develop the Character Skins, in detail. We had decided three aspects of each Character Skin which formed the foundation of their development – Appearance, Interaction and Insight.
The first section, Appearance, would describe the way the Character Skins would look. A unique and interesting description was written for each Character Skin, which complimented their name and their personality.
The next area of work was to establish how the Character Skins would interact with the society. What influence do they have on the people around them, how socially acceptable or unacceptable they are. In order to address these points, a segment called Interactions was designed. Every Character Skin’s interaction was thought out and written in the most unique way. Unusual headlines, sayings, metaphors and ideas were crafted in words to make the discovery of the Character Skins interesting.
The last area to work on was to decide the Character Skin’s ideology of life – what thoughts reside largely in their minds, what explanations do they give to themselves in order to justify their behaviour, what do they have to say about the society and people, what is their perspective of life. This was the trickiest bit in the development of the Character Skins. While working on this area, Mariam and I made sure that none of the Character Skins had a negative set of beliefs or thoughts. We were, Alhamdulilah, successful in devising a strong ideology for every Character Skin and a theory to support their behaviour.
In general, the development of the Character Skins was a challenging task – to make each character as powerful as the other – unique in appearance, realistic in interactions and equipped with differentiated yet strong beliefs and thoughts. The attributes that were assigned to each Character Skin originated partially from our detailed study of action and reaction and partially from our imagination.
Once the work on the Character Skins was done it seemed, as if, our book was over. We gained a great sense of achievement and happiness from the accomplishment of the Character Skins. It was this ‘knowledge of the people’ that we wanted to share with people. The total word count of the Character Skins that resided in five separate MS Word documents was 19,236 on 28th August 2007.
(This information has been extracted from the ‘Word Count’ document which has a monthly record of the word count in each document related to the book.)
From online research we came to know that 20,000 words is the length of many books and so we got a stronger feeling of having finished writing our book. From this feeling the desire of seeing our work in bookshops arose. What do you think that would have led us to?
Discussions started to find a storyline in which we would embed the concept of Character Skins. It didn’t take us long to settle with the story of a boy who is given the knowledge of the Character Skins by his grandfather through a set of mystical things. We believed that the mix of fiction – story of the boy, magic and more, with non-fiction – the concept of Character Skins, would give the readers a unique flavour.
Initially, both of us had decided to make Grandfather convey the knowledge of people – Character Skins, to his grandson, over the period of 2-3 nights. We had planned long insets which would serve the purpose of sharing the Character Skins with the world. However, this implied that there was nothing much happening in the life of the boy, no tale, no twists and turns.
Faryal, our elder sister had a discussion with us where she said that the happening in the life of the boy are as important as the revelation of the concept of Character Skins. In order to make people interested to read more, there had to be some development in the story. Moreover, the insets were loaded with concepts and ideas which would be difficult for the readers to understand and enjoy if the insets were very long.
Her idea was right and so… it meant more work for us!
We prepared ourselves for meeting the agendas for the coming days.
Another destination was visualised and once again, we had the map in our hand…
History repeated itself and we began taking confident steps towards it!
Greatness
A flamboyant thought of Character Skins tuned into a fine story of Sultan, the book ‘I Know Who You Are!’ has been a great experience for us in many ways.
From the very beginning to the publication of the book, many interesting facts made the book special for us. Some are here…
The book took almost, exactly one year to complete.
Olympia publishers were the first publishers we sent our proposal/query to.
Olympia Publishers were the only publishers to whom the entire manuscript of ‘I Know Who You Are!’ was sent to.
The query was sent of via email on 4th March and the publishing contract was signed on 4th July 2008, exactly 4 months.
‘I Know Who You Are!’ gave us an opportunity to explore the different writing styles within us. An explanation of the claim would be that the book has a variety of narration styles – first person narrative, third person narrative, enriched with figurative language and timely flashbacks. The knowledge of the Character Skins gives a taste of text book form of writing – unusual concepts revealed in simple words; sure to be enjoyed by all.
The book has the complexity of life, in the form of Character Skins, blended into the charm of magic, in the form of the mystical things Sultan finds in his grandfather’s cupboard. It is the wisdom of life garnished with the twists and turns life can take any moment.
The storyline involves a Grandfather making his grandson, Sultan, aware of the different people that exist in this world – different thoughts, diverse likings, different priorities and diverse behaviours. Sultan’s grandfather tells him that a successful life can be lead if an understanding of the people is developed through the knowledge of Character Skins. Since a complex concept of Character Skins is presented to a young boy in the book, the story becomes an interesting read. It caters to the tastes of readers of all ages.
Something worth mentioning here is the challenge we had to face during the process of writing the book. It was the difficulty we faced in designing conversations and situations that would illuminate the personalities of the Character Skins. It was a challenging cycle to complete.
Observe actions and reactions that gave birth to Character Skins
Designing and development of Character Skins
Placing Character Skins into the Story to exhibit their traits
By the time situations and conversations had to be designed for the story, Mariam and I had forgotten the original incidents that had led to the birth of the Character Skins. So, we had the Character Skins as a strong guide to develop conversations but the initial impressions of people from the environment had faded away. Thus, we took a lot of time to design scenes and construct conversations that would bring out the different traits of Character Skins in real-life situations.
The book presents a variety of thinking patterns and beliefs that make people do wonderful and weird things in life. From the treasure box, these are a few gems…
Rescue the sinking boat of life with a cork of happiness. ~ Flipside
Don’t leave life until life leaves you! ~Hammerhead
Let the world see your drawing room not your storeroom. ~Sticklip
Save human resources; avoid thinking and hard work! ~ Headspin
The minority is affected by what the majority accepts. So what? ~ Scuff
The book is special to us, as authors and very beneficial, as readers. At the time of proof reading the book, we clashed into concepts and statements; we had ourselves forgotten after writing. It was like opening a jewellery box and re-discovering ornaments that had been kept a long time ago. After reading the book thrice, I still, certainly wouldn’t mind reading it again, especially some of my favourite parts.
My message to people who don’t read books – Grab this one for yourself, you’ll have a great time.
My message to people who read books – This book is an engrossing first-read and more enjoyable the second time, really!
